John Glen Movies
A film editor since the early 1960s, Briton John Glen wielded the scissors on his first James Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in 1969. He went on to edit such subsequent Bonds as The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979), also functioning from time to time as second-unit director. Glen was finally promoted to full director for the 1981 007opus For Your Eyes Only, startling longtime followers of the series by eschewing the gags and gimmickry indigenous to the Roger Moore Bond films and harking back to the minimalism of the Dr. No and From Russia With Love days. Evidently the experiment was not warmly received; in his later Bond films Octopussy (1983) A View to a Kill (1985) The Living Daylights (1987) and License to Kill (1989), Glen returned to the popular larger-than-life elements that the fans demanded. John Glen hasn't been heard from much since drawing the unfortunate assignment of directing the 1992 megaturkey Christopher Columbus: The Discovery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideIn this espionage thriller, Christopher Lambert stars as Tony Eckhardt, an Israeli intelligence agent with the Mossad. Tony has a license to kill and he may be forced to put it to use as he finds himself chasing a notorious Palestinian terrorist who is determined to put a stop to peace negotiations between their two nations. The Point Men also features Kerry Fox and Vincent Regan. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christopher Lambert, Kerry Fox, (more)
Chappy Sinclair enlists the aid of a team of wild air show pilots after he discovers that a Peruvian drug lord has set up shop in a small village. The fly boys make off with a fleet of World War II vintage aircraft in an effort to drive the drug dealers out of business, but they come up against a former Air Force comrade of Sinclair's, who is part of the illegal operation. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louis Gossett, Jr., Paul Freeman, (more)
John Glen directed this throwback to the costume dramas of the 1930s and 1940s, but without a smidgen of their energy and verve. George Corraface plays Christopher Columbus as a dynamic and muscular comic-book hero. He has a dream to set sail to find a new passageway to India, but he needs the backing of the Spanish government to do it. First, he must undergo a grilling by Tomas de Torquemada (Marlon Brando in, hands down, his worst performance). After passing muster with Torquemada, he gets the blessing of Queen Isabella (Rachel Ward) and King Ferdinand (Tom Selleck). Columbus then sets sail in a series of picture-postcard travelogue shots as he sails the ocean blue and discovers a new world of wonders -- particularly the Indian chief's well-endowed daughter. As a sop to revisionists, a rat is seen scampering down the plank as Columbus' vessel lands on "undiscovered" turf. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marlon Brando, Tom Selleck, (more)
In this drama, a race car driver takes on the friend and rival driver who stole his lover. Macho posturing (some of it violent) ensues until the two learn to work together and become a winning team. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Timothy Dalton is better in Licence to Kill than in his first James Bond endeavor (The Living Daylights), but he still seems uncomfortable on the right side of the law. This time around, Bond is working on his own rather than on behalf of the British Secret Service. His American friend Felix Leiter (David Hedison), an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration, has been seriously injured by drug dealer Robert Davi, and 007 is out for blood. There is precious little time for the usual Bondian quippery and directorial campiness, resulting in a marked increase in bloodletting (including the "implosion" of secondary villain Anthony Zerbe). A climactic highway chase involving an oil tanker and a helicopter is stretched slightly beyond its value, but is still one of the best action setpieces in any Bond film. Licence to Kill was a refreshingly serious change of pace for the series, albeit one that tended to lessen Bond's box-office value. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell, (more)
The Living Daylights represents the first appearance by Timothy Dalton as "Bond...James Bond." Based very, very loosely on an obscure Ian Fleming short story, the film finds Bond assigned to aid in the defection of KGB agent Jeroen Krabbe. 007 must prevent an unknown sniper from killing Krabbe before he can reach the West. The mysterious assailant turns out to be the luscious Maryam d'Abo, who like practically everyone in the film except Bond is Not All That She Seems. The plot wends its way through a scheme to trade several million dollars' worth of diamonds for weapons, which will be shipped off to mercenaries worldwide. The climax takes place high above the clouds in a cargo plane loaded with opium. Dalton would play Bond one more time in License to Kill (1989) before handing the franchise over to Pierce Brosnan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Timothy Dalton, Maryam D'Abo, (more)
Secret Agent 007 must stop a megalomaniacal technology mogul from destroying Silicon Valley in this unexceptional entry in the James Bond series. Computer baron Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) is planning to trigger a major California earthquake in order to wipe out his competitors. Bond is assigned to stop him, but first he must do battle with Zorin's statuesque partner in crime, May Day (Grace Jones). The expected high-wire confrontations ensue, as Bond battles the villains at international landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and takes the occasional break to romance an attractive geologist. Unfortunately, nothing fresh is brought to the familiar formula, and even the well-staged action sequences prove less than exciting. Indeed, this otherwise by-the-numbers production is most notable for the fact that it marked the final appearance of Roger Moore as the dashing Bond. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, (more)
This (13th) time around, "007" receives the usual call to come and visit "Mother" when another agent drops off a fake Faberge jeweled egg at the British embassy in East Berlin and is later killed at a traveling circus. Suspicions mount when the assistant manager of the circus Kamal (Louis Jourdan), outbids Bond for the real Faberge piece at Sotheby's. Bond follows Kamal to India where the superspy thwarts many an ingenious attack and encounters the antiheroine of the title (Maud Adams), an international smuggler who runs the circus as a cover for her illegal operations. It does not take long to figure out that Orlov (Steven Berkoff), a decidedly rank Russian general is planning to raise enough money with the fake Faberges to detonate a nuclear bomb in Europe and then defeat NATO forces once and for all in conventional warfare. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Maud Adams, (more)
For Your Eyes Only eschews the gimmickry and campiness of earlier James Bond films, concentrating instead on telling the story and maintaining suspense. Roger Moore is back as Secret Agent 007, this time on the trail of Soviet spies while he romances the beautiful Melina, played by Carole Bouquet. Richard Maibaum's screenplay has very little to do with the collection of short stories that made up Ian Fleming's For Your Eyes Only, save for the plotline involving Melina's seeking vengeance for the death of her father. The direction is by John Glen, who'd previously done second unit work on other Bond films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Carole Bouquet, (more)
Set in India during World War II, this fair action drama relies heavily on the good acting talent gathered to convey its slight, uninvolved story. Gregory Peck is Col. Lewis Pugh, backed up by Roger Moore as Capt. Gavin Stewart, David Niven as Col. Bill Grice, Patrick MacNee as Major Crossley, and several others -- all retired and past the age for active duty. At issue are three German freighters that are parked in the waters off Goa, the Portuguese coastal colony on the subcontinent of India. Since Portugal is neutral, the regular army cannot destroy the freighters, and it is up to the retired army officers and a large corps of over-the-hill volunteers to take on the mission of eliminating the German ships. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, (more)
In this adaptation of Ian Fleming's 1955 novel, James Bond (Roger Moore) must thwart Sir Hugo Drax (Michel Lonsdale), who plans to wipe out all of humankind and replace it with a super race that he has cultivated in a massive space station. The girl in the case is American secret agent Holly Goodhead, intelligently played by Lois Chiles. "Jaws," the steel-mouthed henchman played by Richard Kiel in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), makes a return appearance in Moonraker, turning good guy (complete with a girlfriend of his own) in the process. Bernard Lee makes his last appearance as "M" in this most costly of James Bond's 1970s escapades. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Lois Chiles, (more)
The plot of this of this adaptation of the Daniel Carney's novel, sprinkled throughout a series of extended Sam Peckinpah-inspired action sequences, deals with a collection of mercenary toughguys -- Colonel Allen Faulkner (Richard Burton), Lieutenant Shawn Fynn (Roger Moore), Rafer Janders (Richard Harris), Pieter Coetzee (Hardy Kruger) -- who are hired to parachute into the African bush country and abscond with deposed African president Julius Limbani (Winston Ntshona) and reinstall him as a reigning monarch of an African country, to satisfy British mercantile interests. The action sequences were successful enough to spawn a sequel -- appropriately titled Wild Geese II. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Burton, Roger Moore, (more)
Though not Ian Fleming's most famous James Bond novel, 1962's The Spy Who Loved Me was distinguished by the unique device of telling the story from the heroine's point of view; in fact, Bond doesn't make an appearance until the book is two-thirds over. This would hardly work in the film world's Bond franchise, so the original austere plotline of the novel was eschewed altogether in favor of a labyrinthine story involving outer-space extortion. The leading lady, a "hard-luck kid" in the original, is now sexy Russian secret agent Barbara Bach, who joins forces with Bond (Roger Moore, making his third appearance as 007) to foil yet another megalomaniac villain (Curt Jurgens), who plans to threaten New York City with nuclear weaponry. Beyond the eye-popping opening ski-jump sequence, the film's best scenes involve seven-foot-two Richard Kiel as steel-toothed henchman Jaws. Fifteen scriptwriters worked on The Spy Who Loved Me; only two were credited, including Bond-film veteran Richard Maibaum. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, (more)
Peter R. Hunt directed this World War I action-adventure, based upon the novel by Wilbur Smith. Roger Moore and Lee Marvin team up as Sebastian, a witty and cosmopolitan Englishman, and Flynn O'Flynn, a boozy and ornery Irish American, who decide to blow up a German battleship that has been hidden away for repairs in Southeast Africa. Helping the two in their quest to sink the battleship is Sebastian's wife Rosa (Barbara Parkins), who has her own reasons for seeing the ship is destroyed -- the Germans took the life of her only child. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lee Marvin, Roger Moore, (more)
In the romantic drama Seven Nights in Japan, Michael York plays Prince George, the fictional heir to the British throne, a British navy officer. On shore leave in Japan, he meets Somi, a Japanese tour bus guide (Hidemi Aoki), and they have a brief romance. Attempts are made on the prince's life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael York, Hidemi Aoki, (more)
Based on a play by Barry England, the British Conduct Unbecoming revolves around a sexual violation--which may or may not have occurred. In British India, highborn Mrs. Scarlett (Susannah York) accuses 2nd Lt. Millington, a Bengal Lancer officer (James Faulkner) of raping her. Lieutenant Arthur Drake (Michael York) is assigned to defend Lt. Millington in a trial held behind closed doors to avoid scandal. Colonel Strang (Trevor Howard.) is a martinet judge who presses for a conviction, only to have his determination shaken by the introduction of new evidence. Conduct Unbecoming has the look and feel of a decades-old stage production, but the dialogue and performances provide a strictly contemporary slant. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael York, Richard Attenborough, (more)
Based on a book by National Hunt jockey Dick Francis, the horseracing thriller Dead Cert was filmed in the village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K. When jockey Bill Davidson (Ian Hogg) is killed in a horseracing incident, his best friend Alan York (Scott B. Anthony) decides to investigate. He believes that Bill's death was not an accident, and he intends to expose the real killers. Judi Dench stars as Bill's wife, Laura Davidson, while her real-life husband Michael Williams appears as jockey Sandy Mason. Directed by Tony Richardson, Dead Cert received a U.K. theatrical release in 1974. In British slang, a "dead cert" means something that is definite. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Scott Antony, Judi Dench, (more)
Peter Hunt directed this old fashioned -- if not reactionary -- action film about gold-mining in South Africa. The story concerns a nefarious scheme to control the international price of gold by sabotaging the country's largest gold mine, flooding it with an underground sea. Hurry Hirschfeld (Ray Milland) is a cranky but kind millionaire who owns the gold mine. His granddaughter, Terry Steyner (Susannah York), is a beautiful women suffering from the old ennui. She happens to be married to chief bad-guy Manfred Steyner (Bradford Dillman), who, along with unscrupulous international tycoon Farrell (John Gielgud), hatches the plot to flood Hurry's gold- mine. To the rescue comes Rod Slater (Roger Moore) and his faithful black sidekick Big King (Simon Sabela), ready to right the wrongs and stem the tide in order to make South Africa safe for cheap black labor. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Susannah York, (more)
Henrik Ibsen's oft-filmed play A Doll's House was adapted for the screen in this Anglo-Canadian production. Claire Bloom stars as Nora, the child-like "trophy bride" who matures rather rapidly when her husband is threatened with blackmail. Even after extricating her block-headed hubby from his dilemma, he refuses to take her seriously, whereupon Nora, in a burst of pre-feminist pique, literally slams the door on her hothouse existence. Supporting Ms. Bloom are Anthony Hopkins, Sir Ralph Richardson, Denholm Elliott and Dame Edith Evans. Held out of general release when it was first made in 1973 when it was squeezed off the marketplace by the competing Jane Fonda version, A Doll's House enjoyed its widest distribution upon its 1989 reissue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claire Bloom, Anthony Hopkins, (more)
In between gigs writing two of the first films from director John Boorman and the sequel to The French Connection (1971), writer Alexander Jacobs adapted this bloody, violent drama from a pulp crime novel. Oliver Reed stars as Harry Lomart, a dangerous convict who's been planning a breakout with a fellow inmate, Birdy Williams (Ian McShane). Before the two men can abscond, word comes that Harry's wife Pat (Jill St. John) has been having an affair with another man and has become pregnant with the man's child. That brings the total number of scores that Harry's got to settle once he's on the outside up to two. After a spectacular escape, the pair of hardened criminals are supposed to lie low until it's safe for them to leave the country, but a furious Harry won't allow his wife to get away with her betrayal, and he sets out to find and kill her, as well as her lover. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oliver Reed, Jill St. John, (more)
A year after Get Carter (1971), director Mike Hodges and star Michael Caine reunited for this comic crime thriller. Caine stars as Mickey King, a writer of cheap paperback detective novels, living in Rome and cranking one noir book after another. King is approached by Ben Dinuccio (Lionel Stander) and offered an abnormally large sum to ghost write the autobiography of a mystery celebrity. The intrigued King agrees and is transported to a remote island where he meets his subject, Preston Gilbert (Mickey Rooney), a one-time movie star known for playing gangsters and notorious for hanging out with real-life mobsters off the set (a sly jab at Frank Sinatra and George Raft). Now dying of cancer, Gilbert wants King to jot down his life story before he dies. Although he's an abusive jerk, Gilbert's had an interesting life and King sets about getting it all down on paper, but then the star is murdered at a party, leaving King with no conclusion to his tale. Playing detective like the heroes of his stories, King pieces together a mystery involving Gilbert's past, his ex-wife, a transvestite who's supposed to be dead, and an Italian prince running for office. Though largely dismissed at the time of its release by fans and critics disappointed at its dissimilarity to Get Carter, Pulp (1972) was championed by a few and became something of a cult favorite over subsequent decades. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Caine, Mickey Rooney, (more)
Peter Yates directed this quirky World War II war drama starring Peter O'Toole as Murphy, an Irishman who survives the torpedoing of a merchantman ship off the jungle coast of Venezuela by a German U-boat. Murphy is rescued by French oil engineer, Louis Brezon (Philippe Noiret), who reluctantly takes Murphy to a nearby Quaker mission hospital. Nursed back to health by a missionary nurse (Sian Phillips), Murphy himself nurses a grudge against the German U-boat that blew up the British merchant ship. Meanwhile, a pilot is brought to the mission whose plane had been shot down by the Germans. He begs Murphy to find his airplane to keep it out of enemy hands. But after the pilot dies, Murphy has another idea -- to find the plane, locate the hated U-boat, and blow it to smithereens. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter O'Toole, Sian Phillips, (more)
Based on a novel by Louis L'Amour, this comedic western tells of a thieving man who tries to get his hands on two million dollars of government cash while trying to avoid his friend--who happens to be a lawman. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

- 1969
- PG
- Add On Her Majesty's Secret Service to QueueAdd On Her Majesty's Secret Service to top of Queue
It wasn't as well received at the box office as the pictures that preceded it or followed it, but Peter Hunt's On Her Majesty's Secret Service was the finest of the James Bond movies and also arguably the last truly great movie in the series. James Bond, portrayed here by George Lazenby (in his only performance in the role) has spent nearly two years trying to track down Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas), the head of SPECTRE. He has been taken off the case by his chief (Bernard Lee), an action the pushes him to the point of considering resigning from Her Majesty's Secret Service, just as he opens a possible new avenue of attack on his quarry. Whilst in the field, Bond has chanced to cross paths with the Contessa Teresa Di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg), a beautiful but desperately unhappy woman, whom he rescues from one apparent suicide attempt and an embarrassing moment at a casino gaming table -- the Contessa, who prefers to be called Tracy ("Teresa was a saint"), is the daughter of Marc Ange Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti), an industrial and construction magnate and also a crime boss, who is impressed with Bond personally as well as professionally, and would like to see him marry his daughter. Bond is, at first, unwilling to involve himself with a woman -- any woman -- on that level, but Draco's underworld contacts give Bond a vital clue to Blofeld's whereabouts that get him back on the case and hot on the man's trail. Journeying incognito to Blofeld's mountaintop retreat in the Swiss Alps, Bond finds the criminal mastermind posing as a would-be nobleman and also as a philanthropist, running a clinic devoted to the treatment and eradication of allergies. It's all a front for a surprisingly sinister (and scientifically valid) plot for international blackmail that would make any previous Bond villain quake in fear. And in the process of staying alive long enough to have a chance of stopping Blofeld, Bond discovers the Tracy is truly like no woman he's ever known before -- one special enough that he finds himself willing to give up his life as a free-living, free-loving bachelor. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Lazenby, Diana Rigg, (more)
Luci (Linda Hayden) is the illegitimate teenage sex kitten who goes to live with a doctor and his family after her sleazy, promiscuous mother (Diana Dors) dies. Robert (Keith Barron) is the doctor who may very well be Luci's father. Convinced Robert contributed to her mother's demise by rejecting her years ago, Luci sets out to destroy her new family. She teases the teenage son with kisses before bringing out the lesbian leanings of the mother Amy (Ann Lynn). After putting on a show for the neighbors and dancing with an ominous black man in a sleazy nightclub, Luci sets her sights on Robert in this shocking tale of a titillating teenage tramp. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann Lynn, Keith Barron, (more)






























